A missing Texas 2-year-old has been found dead inside a neighbor’s car near his family’s apartment, a day after he disappeared, police said.
Denton Police Chief Frank Dixon said the body of Sarbesh Gurung was discovered inside a neighbor’s SUV early Wednesday in “pretty close proximity” to the boy’s home after an extensive search involving more than 200 people, ABC News reports.
“We are all heartbroken,” Dixon told reporters during a news conference. “The family is just devastated. The mother is being treated right now for some undetermined medical condition. She had a panic attack when she was notified.”
It’s unclear how the boy managed to get inside the SUV, where he was found by a child whose family was about to head off on a vacation. No obvious signs of trauma were found on his body, which was taken to a medical examiner’s office for an autopsy, Dixon said.
“It’s not a time to point fingers, it’s not a time to assign blame,” the chief told reporters. “It’s a time for us collectively to come together, grieve together and heal together.”
The boy’s death was “probably a tragic accident” that occurred after several contributing factors, including the possibility that he overheated inside the SUV, Dixon said.
“It was just a number of factors that culminated in the ultimate tragedy,” the police chief told reporters.
Temperatures in Denton were in the low 90s when Sarbesh’s mother called police at 2 p.m. Tuesday to say she couldn’t find him inside their apartment near the University of North Texas campus, the Dallas Morning News reports.
The SUV in which Sarbesh was found had tinted windows and sunshades, including one for a child, Dixon told the newspaper.
The child’s relatives will be interviewed as part of that process, but police told the newspaper Tuesday that no foul play was suspected in his disappearance.
About 40 people attended a vigil late Wednesday in Sarbesh’s memory, the Denton Record-Chronicle reports.
“This is not the outcome we hoped for,” family friend Giriraj Bhetwal said. “Dad and Mom are still in shock — they could not make it here.”
A neighbor of the family, meanwhile, said the boy’s mother had told her Wednesday that Sarbesh loved getting inside cars.
“You just think, ‘Why didn’t I look there?’” Martha Holt told the Record-Chronicle. “It was right there. And you know it was a white SUV just like the one they have. When I saw that this morning, I thought, ‘Oh, he might have thought that was his car.’”